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Jesse

@ember42.bsky.social

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Process engineer. Energy, infrastructure, industrial decarbonisation, P(🌎net0|☢️📉) << P(🌎net0|☢️📈), Sulphur. Views my own. Ember421 at x

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Jesse @ember42.bsky.social · Nov 15

How do we make nuclear the anchor for flexibility and firm capacity?
Here is my basic proposal.
Let’s start with a 350MW Gen IV reactor. This is basically the Natrium in round numbers, but we could use others, and we can adjust the ratios of turbine / core etc to suit the system.
*ANY* ~500C+ works

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Jesse @ember42.bsky.social · 4d

The big challenge for Ontario is that with extensive access to the gas network, there is no real coat savings on the table...
Would be huge for Quebec's peak load *iff* they are cold wearer down to a rating where they avoid resistance backup at the coldest temperatures...

Jesse @ember42.bsky.social · 16d

We should probably look for more EW facing vertical installs that leave rows easy to access.
Or even just EW facing vertical installs as wind breaks at field edges...

Jesse @ember42.bsky.social · 19d

Doesn't that risk decomposing it into methane?

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Jesse @ember42.bsky.social · Sep 18

"Oh, the year was 1778!". Gesture to go next...

Jesse @ember42.bsky.social · Sep 18

And that might actually be competative, unlike hair-brained schemes to build a 2000km+ pipeline from AB to the Atlantic coast to make LNG...

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Jesse @ember42.bsky.social · Sep 1

So gas can backup gas!
The main reliability risk is in the common cause failure of the gas delivery system.
That can be mitigated by making then dual-fuel, with onside liquid fuels storage.
But of course, a reserve margin is needed to cover that they are individually imperfect.

Jesse @ember42.bsky.social · Sep 1

The important thing here though is that their failures tend to be uncorlelated (outside that near design weather aspect, which needs to be accounted for in their reliability ratings), and their scheduled downtime is anti-corrleated (schedules are staggered, and tend to be in shoulder season).

Jesse @ember42.bsky.social · Aug 11

This only works if Ukraine gets a substantial nuclear deterrent.
If we don't like that alternative, maybe something else should be on the table...

Jesse @ember42.bsky.social · Aug 5

And anouther is the common cause failure risk of relying too much on the just in time fuel delivery of natural gas (or hydrogen if we were to ever consider that).

Jesse @ember42.bsky.social · Aug 5

Anouther big factor is a lot of the cost saving is illusory, as there a lot of fixed costs that are being recouped on volumtric basis, that will end out as some form of fixed charges, and that will end out going to the capacity value of the fuel supply system.
The idle systems issue.

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Jesse @ember42.bsky.social · Aug 5

And this is a big chunk of why I'm not enthused about the 'default plan' of a natural gas firm system, with solar and wind 'fuel saving' as much as they economically can...

Kevin J. Kircher @kevinjkircher.com · Aug 5

It's true that lowering capacity factors for fossil gas generators helps, but I think even most energy wonks don't appreciate how much methane is emitted from the supply chain that feeds those generators. It's enormous and the leaks are about the same whether the plant runs 80% or 20% of the time.

Nathan Lewis @nlewis1111.bsky.social · Aug 4

Furthermore, the primary way that transitions happen is by lowering the capacity factors of FF sources. Not shutting down resources, but utilizing them less and less. This isn't a horrible thing from the standpoint of maintaining stability for rare climactic events. ...

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Jesse @ember42.bsky.social · Aug 4

Lounges are best for medium to long connections on international flights...
especially the kind with showers.

Jesse @ember42.bsky.social · Jul 28

The alien equivalent of viruses would likely be effectively inert, or at least non-spreading(works by hijacking biomachenery, if the bimachinery is different, unlikely to do replaicate, may kill a few cells).
Alien bacteria equivalent, on the other hand, could be terrifying.

Jesse @ember42.bsky.social · Jul 28

Anywhere that is using resistance backup for a heat pump would have this issue...

Jesse @ember42.bsky.social · Jul 27

The main problem with that is it becomes the grid worst case capacity requirement, right when solar is at a minimum, and wind typically under-performes.

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Jesse @ember42.bsky.social · Jul 26

For a highly cyclic service, like FCAS, would that mean you should have an 'A' and 'B' side of your battery, where one side would stay in a charging state, the other in a discharging state (just varrying between 'stipped' and max rate) until they get to their max/min charge levels, then switch?

Jesse @ember42.bsky.social · Jul 26

Does that mean switching the polarity of the cell (my terminology may be off, but going to a voltage lower than open circuit cell voltage to higher than, or vice versa) is a large driver of wear? Along with charge/discharge near the ends of the range are the main drivers?